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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221258">Believer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuseOfTheNight/pseuds/MuseOfTheNight'>MuseOfTheNight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>American Gods (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Relationship, F/M, MadWife if you squint, Resurrection, The author squints</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:14:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221258</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuseOfTheNight/pseuds/MuseOfTheNight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“And what can give life back to him?”<br/>“The very same thing that first gave him life centuries ago” the Baron said with a wicked smirk “Belief.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Believer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I realize I'm kinda late for this party, but I just re-watched the entire series and that ending of season 2 has me so hyped for season 3! This idea came to me and wouldn't leave me alone, so I thought I could as well share ;)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The trip to New Orleans took forever. Laura stole a car from a pothead who had enough weed on the glove compartment to make the journey a whole lot more fun, if she could actually get high. Which she couldn’t, so she let it there. She drove tirelessly, stopping only for gas, keeping her eyes trained on the road – or at least, trying to.</p>
<p>Sweeney’s body was cramped in the backseat. Out of some weird sense of kindness, she had even tried to make him comfortable – a laughable effort, really, because Sweeney was <em>dead. </em>He didn’t give a shit that she had pillowed his head on the leather jacket she stole alongside with the car, or that she had laid him on his side so his knees would dangle from the edge of the seat rather than being squeezed between his torso and the door.</p>
<p>But, for some godforsaken reason, <em>she </em>cared. She couldn’t bring herself to be unkind to his corpse. It was ironic, really, how she had shown much more gentleness to him in death than she ever did in life.</p>
<p>Or maybe it wasn’t irony so much as it was comeuppance. Sweeney had followed and dragged her dead body around for quite some time. Now it was her turn to do the same for him.</p>
<p>And that’s all that was. She was settling her debt. After she found a way to bring him back, they’d be square.</p>
<p>When they finally reached New Orleans, Laura noticed something strange. For someone who had been dead for two days, Sweeney looked remarkably fine. Sure, he was covered in blood and gore from his own insides, but he was nowhere near as rotten as Laura would’ve expected. She decided that was a good sign – easier to resurrect someone when they weren’t falling to pieces.</p>
<p>People openly gawked as she made her way to the Le Coq Noir, but she didn’t give a single fuck. A small skinny girl carrying a ginger giant over her shoulders was quite an exotic sight. Several people pointed their cameras or their smartphones at them, and Laura smiled like it was all some elaborated act to impress tourists.</p>
<p>“Look who’s back already” the Baron drawled the second she stepped inside, taking a whiff “I smell two dead bodies. There should be none.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, about that potion” Laura deposited her burden on an empty table. Sweeney looked like a broken doll, arms and legs splayed in odd angles “Is that the only way you know to bring someone back to life?”</p>
<p>“Yes” the Baron said somberly “But Sweeney cannot be brought back with a potion. That is for mortals.”</p>
<p>“And <em>what </em>can give life back to him?”</p>
<p>“The very same thing that first gave him life centuries ago” the Baron said with a wicked smirk “<em>Belief.</em>”</p>
<p>“Belief?” Laura rolled her eyes. Well, wasn’t that vague and possibly unachievable “Who the fuck still believes in leprechauns?”</p>
<p>“Maybe the people who brought him here” the Baron mused.</p>
<p>“Do you happen to know <em>where </em>I can find his believers?” Laura didn’t like the way the Baron was smiling, like he was watching the funniest show in the world.</p>
<p>“I do” the Baron answered “The information is yours. For a price.”</p>
<p>Of fucking course. Laura sighed.</p>
<p>“Another fucked up magic orgy?” Laura said, unimpressed. It had been a neat little trick the first time around, but she knew what to expect now.</p>
<p>“I told you” the Baron moved forward until he was invading her personal space, and she could suddenly <em>smell </em>him; tobacco and peppers and sage assaulted her at once, with a trace of something rotten underneath all that. Laura wondered if it was her or Sweeney or the Baron’s natural musk “I trade only in truth. I want to know why you came here.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t it obvious?” Laura tilted her head to the side, indicating Sweeney’s body.</p>
<p>“But why have you come so far for him?” the Baron insisted, eyes glowing like a silver quarter.</p>
<p>“He’s done the same for me” Laura said “I owe him.”</p>
<p>“Is that all?” the Baron’s smirk was truly an unnerving thing. Laura wanted nothing more than punch it right out of his face, along with some of his teeth. She didn’t know what he was talking about – what happened in their last visit meant nothing. It had all been a trick, an illusion.</p>
<p>“I don’t want him to be dead” Laura said simply.</p>
<p>The Baron fixed her a long, hard stare that seemed to bore into her skull, like he was trying to pry into her mind. She clenched her jaw and refused to flinch, furiously thinking only of how frustrated she was with the lack of help.</p>
<p>“There’s a house in Raleigh, North Carolina” the Baron said at last “His first home in America. But you won’t find there anything you don’t already have here.”</p>
<p>“Thanks for the address and for the unwanted confusing advice.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Heat and humidity were very bad for dead bodies. Which meant Alabama right in the middle of summer was the worst place possible for Laura and Sweeney.</p>
<p>Laura didn’t feel any different – because that would imply the capacity to <em>feel </em>something – but she saw how much worse she looked on the rearview mirror. There was a pale film over her eyes, her hair was dull and fragile and her skin looked almost black with the necrotic connective tissue beneath showing.</p>
<p>Sweeney was much better, though that was a matter of comparison. She certainly looked more macabre, though Sweeney looked pale and rigid, like death had been slowly turning him into a statue.</p>
<p>Once they made it to Tuscaloosa, Laura took upon herself to find a transport that would better preserve them on the way to North Carolina. An ice cream truck seemed like the best idea. She took the weed from the pothead’s car, though.</p>
<p>The rest of the trip to Raleigh was nice and fresh. She set the AC on maximum and turned the radio on, singing out of key.</p>
<p>Raleigh turned out to be a big ass city lacking leprechauns doing coin tricks on the street, so Laura had to resort to extreme measures. She had to stop by a dirty bar – the kind of place where every customer was drunk on cheap beer and tequila shots – and rip the information from some drunks. The Richardsons were an old family of Irish roots, and they had lived in the city for centuries until the last one of them died.</p>
<p>Even after this disappointing news, Laura went to the old Richardson state, driving the ice cream truck in slow speed, reluctant to admit defeat.</p>
<p>As old as the house was, it wasn’t a decrepit piece of shit. It was rather elegant, really, though the rooms were bare of furniture and spiders had taken residence in every corner.</p>
<p>Laura left Sweeney’s body in the truck as she ventured inside. The place looked like it hadn’t been lived in for decades.</p>
<p>“Fuck” Laura sighed. The wasn’t going to be easy, was it?</p>
<p>Laura trudged outside, getting in the truck again.</p>
<p>“You could’ve made this easier, you know?” Laura said to Sweeney’s corpse “Could’ve been less of an asshole. Could’ve done something with your life other than piss people off.”</p>
<p>Sweeney, of course, didn’t answer. Laura lit up a cigarette.</p>
<p>“But then you wouldn’t be you, would it?” she mused “You’d probably be alive now, if you were nicer. And I…” Laura hesitated, trying to picture that life that had never been “I would be with Shadow now.”</p>
<p>Laura was surprised to find she wasn’t longing for that version of events to be true. Shadow wasn’t really very high on her priority list anymore. That should’ve disturbed her a lot, but Laura couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was too busy worrying about what the fuck she would do with that stupid dead giant. And the coin in her chest – would it keep giving her life? Should she worry about going back to be a hundred percent dead?</p>
<p>“Fucking Wednesday” Laura swore “Couldn’t he have found someone else to use? Plenty of stupid fucking people are out there, wanting a sign of God. I’m sure they’d be really fucking happy with a Viking one” Laura clenched her hands in fists “Fucking fucker. He didn’t need Shadow.”</p>
<p>Or maybe he did. Laura would be fucked if she knew what Shadow had done for Wednesday while she was chasing after resurrection.</p>
<p>Resurrection. Sweeney had promised her that he’d help her with it.</p>
<p>And she believed him.</p>
<p>Sweeney needed belief. That’s what the Baron had said, right? Well, she could believe in him. She could believe he could come back to life to be a giant pain in her ass, with his stupid artisanal cigarettes, rude manners, filthy tongue, ridiculous fits of bad luck and amusing approach to any sort of physical contest, always acting like he was having the time of his…</p>
<p>The coin in Laura’s chest <em>felt </em>warm. She looked down and sure enough, there was a circle of gold in her chest, visible through her ratty floral dress and decaying flesh.</p>
<p>With the corner of her eye, she saw a golden glow. Turning around in the driver’s seat, she realized it surrounded Sweeney, wrapped around him like a blanket of golden light.</p>
<p>Laura blinked as the light grew stronger and stronger, until she couldn’t withstand it and had to close her eyes.</p>
<p>The light faded slowly. When she was able to open her eyes and see again, Sweeney was still flat on his back with his arms and legs splayed around, but the gaping hole in his torso was gone. Color had returned to his skin – and to Laura’s eyes. As she watched Sweeney look less dead by the second, she too felt more alive. Her body hurt, stitches and bullet holes and overused muscles and joints sending sparks of pain through her. Uncomfortable, but not unbearably so – she was less dead, that was for sure, but not entirely.</p>
<p>Sweeney, on the other hand, was back for real. He blinked, hazel eyes opening slowly. Like a newborn baby giraffe, he seemed unused to his own long limbs and it took him a minute to sit up successfully.</p>
<p>“<em>You” </em>Sweeney’s expression was as stony as his face had been when he was dead, but there was something akin to satisfaction in his hazel eyes “Can’t even fucking let me die in peace, can you, dead wife?”</p>
<p>“I’m not through with you yet” Laura shrugged, trying her damned best to appear nonchalant, lest Sweeney got too full of himself.</p>
<p>Sweeney grumbled something in a language she didn’t understand.</p>
<p>“Speak English” she demanded “You can start with <em>thank you.”</em></p>
<p>“What the fuck should I thank you for?” Sweeney snickered.</p>
<p>“I brought you back” she said. His only response was to widen his eyes and gawk at her in stunned silence.</p>
<p>“You believed in me” he said in a low voice after a moment.</p>
<p>“Don’t let it inflate your stupid fucking ego” she grumbled, embarrassed despite herself “You promised me resurrection. I <em>believe </em>in that promise.”</p>
<p>Sweeney snorted. She could’ve sworn he said something under his breath that sounded like <em>“Right”.</em></p>
<p>“An ice cream truck again” he pointed out “Freezing my nuts off in the cold. This brings back some memories.”</p>
<p>“Indeed” Laura agreed. She would never say, but those were good memories “I suppose your debt with Wednesday has been paid. With you dying and all.”</p>
<p>“Suppose so” he nodded, reaching for paper and his tobacco box “I’m free as a bird, now.”</p>
<p>“No, you’re not” Laura said smugly “You owe me now. And I’m still waiting for that resurrection.”</p>
<p>“I told you, the Baron is the best” Sweeney said “Whatever terms he presented, you’re not going to find a better offer.”</p>
<p>The Baron’s terms. Blood infused with love.</p>
<p>“I’ll keep that in mind” she said, starting the truck.</p>
<p>“Have something better to do in the meantime?” Sweeney scoffed “You sure don’t seem in such a hurry to get your life back.”</p>
<p>“Maybe I need time” Laura said. She couldn’t admit to herself – or, Lord forbid, to Sweeney - what was on her mind yet. She needed time to understand it first.</p>
<p>“Whatever for?” he asked, finishing his hand-made cigarette.</p>
<p>“To get myself a new life.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you enjoyed this piece, as short as it is :) Feedback, including constructive criticism, is much appreciated ;D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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